A reader and writer fooling with words

An Avuncular Resolution

I am a fan of New Year’s Resolutions and I discovered this year that my son is too. They’re not for everybody, of course, and there’s nothing to stop you deciding to change your life or habits on the 17th of May either for that matter, but there’s something about the New Year which calls for change. I have a list from a particularly ambitious New Year about six years ago. I aimed to learn how to drive, lose significant weight, learn how to swim and write a novel. I managed them all except the swimming (I’m still struggling with a fear of water, but I’m much better than I was). Not all in one year, you understand. I believe in the resolutions but I don’t tend to set a deadline.

This year however I didn’t set any. I have a heap of writing goals to meet in the next twelve months and decided those would be enough to handle. That was until my six-year old son arrived home to declare they’d been discussing resolutions in school and he had made one himself. As his mother I already thought he was close to perfect – what could his resolution be? “I am going to be good,” he declared. Amazingly he is really trying to stick to it. Much helped by a wise teacher who added the next day to the students that “each day is a new day” – meaning you can re-start your resolution as often as you need to. Clever woman.

His resolution got me thinking and I now have an avuncular (a-vunc-cul-lar) resolution of my own. This adjective, often applied to uncles (why not aunts?), describes one of fond benevolence. It’s a wonderful quality to have in any person and worth aspiring to, if only because the word sort of roles off your tongue in a pleasant fashion.

Regular readers will know that I crochet regularly (amongst other crafting activities). All my family now sport homemade scarves, hats, jewellery, and such like gifts. I’m working on a detailed cardigan for myself at the moment. But you do tend to get left with oddments of yarn and finally even a loving family has a surfeit of scarves. I get around this issue by creating a bevy of tiny hats for Innocent Smoothies’ Big Knit campaign each autumn.

But this year I am branching out. Each month I will try to complete something using my crafting skills to contribute to a charity. If any of you have suggestions of what I could make and where I could donate it – please comment below. For January I am making a stripey grey and red scarf for Craft Hope’s projecct number 6 – The Red Scarf Appeal. I’ll post a photo here of the finished article and if any of you knit, I can recommend the free pattern provided at Craft Hope for this project – it looks wonderful enough to almost tempt me to ditch my crochet hook in favour of two needles.